>> 2002 Town Meetings >> St. Louis COPYRIGHT TOWN MEETINGS 2002 The Changing Research and Collections Environment: The Information Commons Today Hosted by the First Joint Conference of the Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America Hyatt Regency at Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri March 23, 2002, 9:30 a.m - 12:30 p.m. Free and Open to the Public VRA-ARLIS Conference | Agenda | Speaker Biographies | Resources This meeting will focus on the history and meaning of the "information commons," a term used to describe the various free and open public resources of information, and how that concept intersects with licensing, one of the prevailing mechanisms for distributing digital resources today.  After contextual introductions, the meeting will open with legal counsel Michael Shapiro (currently Attorney-Advisor, Office of International and Legislative Affairs, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), who will review the evolution of the notion of an "Information Commons." Architectural historian and Bryn Mawr lecturer Jeffrey Cohen will then speak about the practical issues of implementing a public domain database to provide wide and free access to certain cultural material. Independent scholar, Robert Baron will then deliver a response to these papers. The second part of the meeting will open with Mary Case (Association of Research Libraries) describing current trends in licensing, currently the leading means of distributing digital information online. She will be followed by two speakers describing the approaches of two organizations in licensing cultural materials principally for educational and nonprofit use. First, Robert Clarida (Partner, Cowan, Liebowitz and Latman) will speak on the fair use doctrine in copyright law, with a particular focus on the perceived tension between promoting scholarship and protecting copyrighted works. Tony Gill (Program Officer, Research Libraries Group) will then outline the licensing arrangements for contributors and academic subscribers to RLG Cultural Materials (a new digital multimedia collection of works and artifacts drawn from the collections of RLG member institutions) and will also describe the Alliance's future aspirations for wider licensing to the commercial and pay-per-view sectors. The meeting will conclude with an open forum with questions, comments and discussion on the issues raised by the presentations. * To be admitted, non-conference participants need to collect a special "speakers badge" from the Conference Registration Desk AGENDA INTRODUCTIONS Welcome & Introductions Kathe Albrecht, Visual Resource Curator, American University, and Roger Lawson, Administrative Librarian, National Gallery of Art, This Meeting in Context David Green, Executive Director, NINCH THE INFORMATION COMMONS TODAY Imagining the Public Domain Michael Shapiro, Attorney-Advisor, Office of International and Legislative Affairs, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Implementing Public Domain Collections Online Jeffrey Cohen, Lecturer, Bryn Mawr College Respondent: Robert Baron, Independent Scholar Comments, Questions and Discussion Break LICENSING CULTURAL RESOURCES Trends in Licensing Models Mary Case, Director, Office of Scholarly Communication, Association of Research Libraries Fair Use Robert Clarida, Partner, Cowan, Liebowitz and Latman The Licensing of RLG's Cultural Materials Initiative Tony Gill, Program Officer for Member Initiatives, Research Libraries Group Comments, Questions and Discussion. OPEN FORUM A hallmark of all NINCH Town Meetings, the open forum will give all attendees the opportunity to participate in an examination of the issues through prepared queries and informal discussion. SAINT LOUIS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Kathy Albrecht, American University Roger Lawson, National Gallery of Art Barbara Rockenbach, Yale University Maryly Snow, University of California, Berkeley